1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a mutual authentication system and method in a sensor network, and more particularly to a system and method for mutual authentication between a node and a sink using a public key in a sensor network.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a general sensor network, when a node requests connection to a first sink, which is accessing a sensor network, the first sink transfers information on the node to a second sink connected to the first sink, and the transferred node information is forwarded to a Base Station (BS) through mutually connected sinks. When the BS has received the node information, the BS performs an authentication process with respect to the node, and transfers authentication information to the first sink. When the first sink has received the authentication information related to the node, the first sink determines whether or not to authenticate the node, and authenticates or rejects the node according to a result of the determination.
In such a sensor network, mutual authentication between a node and a sink is performed using various schemes, such as a scheme in which a BS controls the authentication of sensors in order to authenticate a device newly participating in the sensor network, and either to create a link key with an authenticated node or to reduce the operation load of sensors.
As described above, according to the conventional scheme, in order to perform mutual authentication between a node and a sink, the sink transmits node information to a BS and receives authentication information from the BS.
However, whenever a sink and a node are to be connected with each other, a request for authentication of the node must be sent to a BS. Consequently, in a multi-hop environment, there is difficulty in that a plurality of sinks must be traversed to transfer node information to the BS and to receive authentication information from the BS.
In addition, even when an authenticated node moves and is connected to another sink, authentication must again be performed through the aforementioned operations, creating an inconvenience in that the authenticated node must repeatedly perform the authentication operation with the sinks whenever the authentication node moves.
Moreover, when authentication is performed through a BS in a sensor network of a multi-hop environment, many sinks must be traversed upon performing the authentication, greatly increasing overhead resources. Further, the sink detection time and the amount of overhead may increase by geometric progression according to an increase in the number of hops.